Kolbeinns second pictural journey through the mystic Scandinavian forest, this time starring a wee hairy fellow we believe to be the author himself. Some people have dreams, other Kolbeinns have outer body fairy fests ... go join him.

And Peter Blegvad found another bunch of strips from his series The Pedestrian, so this semiotic stroll will continue for another 26 fancy steps. No one remembers what he imagines having observed like Blegvad.

You have exactly one-week to go over to the Comics Journal website and waste perfectly valuable work time reading an interview with Paul Karasik about Fletcher Hanks. Hanks is featured on the cover of the Journal's Best of the Year issue and they are offering the contents on-line for free this week only as a promotion.

detail from a page of the autobiographical work in progress "la mia vita disegnata male" by Gipi

Italian comic maker Gipi is indisputably a major newer "player" in graphic literature (or just plain, and, for my sensibilities, more confidently, comics), a talent seemingly falling right onto the scene almost fully formed, having, not being offensively young in years, apparently riped in some hidden corner.

I first got acquainted with his comics through Johann Ulrich, who runs Avant-Verlag, Gipis German publisher (Gipi is published in English by First Second and Fantagraphics). While it is easy to see how Gipis virtuoso drawings catered to Johanns graphic predilections, he especially stressed his narrative merits by reading aloud lines from his comics, which sounded, and read, indeed well crafted, showing a confident ear for rhythm in his sentences.I immediately got hooked (and recruted by Johann to proof read the translation of his first book by Gipi, though somehow the Italian printer got a hold of an older version of the document, which he choose to print instead), but still stayed in the water, not feeling the fishing line pulled that hard yet.Maybe he seemed to me just too talented, too apt at drawing the reader into his narration, something that sometimes can make me a bit reluctant. But I feel his newest and upcoming works, at times now directly autobiographical, and even more daringly executed in an improvisation aching to a controlled sort of automatic writing, might change that soon.While I'm waiting to reach the point of total submission to his storytelling mastery, I'm actively working my way up to that goal, by regularly visiting his French blog (a language I speak) and his, more complete, Italian blog (where I get only 10% at best, but hey, there's still le immagini!). In both places he displays pages from his comics projects in progress.

The Illustration Department, Parsons The New School for DesignandLiberal Studies, The New School for Social Researchhost a symposium in celebration of the first English-language translationof the complete picture-story works of Rodolphe Töpffer by David Kunzle.

Rodolphe Töpffer (1799-1846) draftsman, writer and educator from Geneva, is recognized as the inventor of the modern comic-strip or picture-story. Töpffer initially feared that the publication of these picture-stories would damage his reputation as an educator (the mixing of words and images was seen as a frivolous endeavor). The books were eventually published, translated, pirated, and widely distributed, thus triggering the European and American culture of the comic strip. In 1845, a pirated edition of Töpffer's Histoire de M. Vieux Bois was the first comic-strip book published in America. A hundred and sixty years later, the separation of word and image persists in the academy. The symposium examines the traditions of the picture-story, picture-recitations, concrete vs. mental images, the materiality of symbols, illustration, and nonverbal communication.

Considering its number of inhabitants, Finland seems surprisingly rich on more or less young, energetic comicsmakers, a lot of them gathering around the publishing enterprises daada books or Boing Being. And almost all of them seem to be utterly Skandinavian oddballs affected by peculiar idionsyncrasies and a healthy dose of common nonsense. If it's a cliché, it sure isn't a tired one yet, and new additions to the electrocomics catalogue by Amanda Vähämäki and Jyrki Heikkinen are no exceptions: Singing giants getting kicked out of their home to make room for a tiny mummy having difficulties standing upright, malfunctioning rescue robots, ominous predictions uttered if only to appropriately intensify a thrift store shopping experience, a chance meeting marred by irritating screeching sounds while floating above sunken cities, magic circles holding off dubious creatures prone to much a senseles brawl ...You might want to figure out for yourself which book brings which, they're only two clicks away, but don't come running back here complaining if they confuse your sorry little mind for a moment. Be asured you needed it, and it is definitely healthier than the brain frying waves emitted by a Nokia cell, that other Finish export hit. (kai pfeiffer)

Since 1974, the filmmaker Heinz Emigholz has created a tableau of around 300 drawings which interweaves autobiographical elements with historical and fictive events of the 20th century into an idiosyncratic pictorial language. The drawings are taken from Emigholz’ diaries: collages which also form the basis of his films ‘The Base of Make Up (I)’ and ‘The Base of Make Up (II)’. On the occasion of this exhibition, Emigholz will complete the series of drawings and present the project for the first time in its entirety.

The exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof constitutes the artist’s first attempt at a comprehensive presentation of this central work in the form of a spatial composition. In the broadest sense, it might be thought of as an architectonic endeavour calling for the translation of two-dimensional visual realms – if we overlook for a moment the objecthood of the notebook – into the three-dimensional world. Considering the number of exhibitions Heinz Emigholz has behind him, it is an endeavour anything but unfamiliar to the artist. The space is even expanded into the fourth dimension by the innate temporality of a small cinema showing the three films Emigholz has made so far on The Basis of Make-Up. Interspersed with unused sequences from other films by the artist, the films flip through the thousands of handwritten pages comprising his notebooks. cinematic “charging”, we encounter a five-tiered row of black-and-white drawings which have an encyclopaedic density about them. Spanning the two longer walls of the gallery, the row includes among other things the artist’s notebook pictures which are shown in negative and positive. In actual fact, the images we see before us are not drawings at all but rather sophisticated photographic prints which are based on the artist’s drawings

Emigholz explains: "’The Base of Make Up’ is the core around which my films ‘Normal Salt, the Base of Make Up’ and ‘The Lawn of Things’ circulate. I envisage ‘The Base of Make Up’ as a silent intermezzo, or as a short recapitulation in between these films.” Additionally, Emigholz’s latest film about the architect Paul Loos will be premiered in the exhibition as part of the Filmfestspiele Berlinale.

If you stay in Hongkong between the 04.12.2007 and the 07.01.2008, you must not miss the chance, to see original drawings by chihoi, whose e-books at electrocomics "still life" and "papa you can read wherever you are, as far as you are connected to the www.

Since the publication of The Writer in 1997, local comic artist Chihoi has published three individual comic books and several collective comics in the last ten years. Not a rich corpus of published works, certainly; but the subject matters are heavy and thorny, the style is somber and unique, the language is subtle and incisive. Each publication surpasses its precedent in terms of maturity. Today, Chihoi is one of the most prominent artists in Hong Kong comics, gaining intensive attention from the public.

As a continuation of Comix Home Base, the Hong Kong Arts Centre is proud to present the next wave, Hochaaa! Chihoi's Comics, 10-Year Retrospective!

One praiseworthy thing in digital age is, that people really send copies of their photos. Before the invention of e-mails everybody only promised "yes, I´ll make you one copy" but it never happened. Nina Pechkovskaya, who sent me pictures of the Boom-Fest in Saint Petersburg didn´t give promises and she didn´t make the photos with a digital camera. She used a Lomo, this obscure russian Camera, out of which some western european scene kids make a cult. Indeed it produces a fine play of colours, but I think, the real credits have to go to Nina, who simply is a good photographer.

On Friday, the 12th of October, the 3rd International Festival of Reality Comics will open with a workshop involving authors and promoters coming from all over Europe. Authors of well-known magazines like Strapazin (Switzerland), Babel (Athens), Glomp (Finland), Chili Com Carne (Portugal) and new self-productions coming from new members of the EU will participate at the meeting at the Albergo Cappello in Ravenna. The Festival highlight will be on Saturday the 13th of October, with the opening of the collective exhibition European Comics Cartography at the Museo Nazionale of Ravenna. This prestigious institution hosts an exhibit of about 50 European authors working in all the invited magazines. The exhibitions will stay open until the 15th of November, except for the Dernier Cri that will close the 6th of November.For the closing of the Festival “L'uomo cane suda olio” – personal exhibit by Stefano Ricci, opening the 10th of November at the Mirada gallery. Stefano Ricci is in Ravenna for a project with Ravennateatro.

(I would like to present fotos of all nice people I met in Saint Petersburg, but most of the pictures are blurred)

Cedric Manche

Ulli Lust and Jyrki Heikkinen (Finnland)

russian girls like to decorate themselves with leaves,

and they seem to have a good sense for balance.

the catalog is finally printed! (Jimmy Beaulieu, Dima Iakovlev)

a comicmagazine from Brno, Ceská

this young gallerist founded a comic art book gallery in Saint Petersburg last month with works by Frédéric Coché and Stefan J. H. van Dinther

lecture about russian traditions in picture storytelling, for example in the surrounding of icon paintings

the boom-fest has all chances to be a fumetto for eastern europe: the festival chartered aboat for a trip on the newa by night, driving past the illuminated city (right: Namida, russian comicartist)

KristiinaKolehmainen from the comic library in stockholm and her friend Britt Marie took me to a "good restaurant with russian food". It came out, that it was the presumable most expensive restaurant of saint petersburg, for sure it was the most luxurious, I've ever been to (and I ate with mafiosi in Italy 20 years ago). This is the toilet.

A new 308pages GLÖMP 9 anthology is out now, and the example pages look great again!The pictures are universal, the language in the ballons is finnish. For a better understanding the editors give us english subtitles.